Va. `Crescent' Reforms State

Rural Ways Bow To New Power Base

L. Douglas Wilder's historic election on Nov. 7 captured the attention of the nation, which marveled how it was that the Old Dominion could be the first state to elect a black governor.

But the state that elected Wilder is not the same Virginia where powerful rural interests dominated the political machinery for much of this century.

It was the new Virginia, the one dominated by the urban and suburban politics of its "golden" crescent that made him governor, just as the new Virginia helped bring the state the lottery and, soon, legalized horse betting.

This new power base in Virginia - called the Urban Crescent - is the rapidly developing region stretching from the tip of Loudoun County in Northern Virginia to the North Carolina line in Hampton Roads.

The Crescent's population boom is changing the face of Virginia in both obvious and subtle ways that affect the politics and economics of the state as well as the day-to-day lives of its residents.

It is this region where 80 percent of the state's growth since 1950 has been concentrated, where 90 percent of the growth during the 1980s has taken place. Here, there are more jobs and better paying jobs. And the people who live here are different than the people who live in the rest of the state.

For example:

* Based on 1984 estimates, residents in the Urban Crescent have a per capita income of $15,182, compared to $10,780 for the rest of the state.

In Northern Virginia, the difference is even greater. That region has a per capita income of $17,724.

* Urban Crescent residents are better educated, with 24.3 percent of all people 25 or older in 1980 saying they have a college education, compared to just 11.9 percent in the rest of the state. Again, the figure is higher for Northern Virginia.

* There are more minorities in the Urban Crescent - 23.8 percent - compared to 17 percent in the rest of the state.

* More Urban Crescent women work, 55.9 percent, compared to 47.3 percent in the rest of the state.

"It certainly has effected a major transformation in social and cultural attitudes in the state of Virginia," said Mark Rozell, a Mary Washington College political science professor.

"I think you can put Doug Wilder's election together with pari-mutuel betting and the lottery and see a pattern. ... Many of these people are not the kind who want to idealize Virginia traditions."

In the Urban Crescent, 53 percent of voters cast their ballots for Wilder, compared to 46 percent in the rest of the state. That support was crucial, as Wilder lost voters in western Virginia that had supported his Democratic predecessors, Sen. Charles S. Robb and Gov. Gerald L. Baliles.

The Urban Crescent's influence was even greater in the 1987 lottery and 1988 pari-mutuel gambling referendums. The region favored each by 60 percent or more.

Urban Crescent residents are also more likely to be new arrivals to Virginia, which analysts say is a key factor in understanding the social, political and economic changes of this decade.

The 1980 census found that 21.6 percent of those living in the Urban Crescent, or almost 700,000 people, had moved to Virginia from another state or nation in the previous five years.

Since 1980, more than 600,000 people have moved to the Urban Crescent. More than half those are newcomers to the state, estimates the Center for Public Service at the University of Virginia.

"When you bring people in, you bring them from other places. They have different views, more worldly views," said Ray McGrath, one of the center's research analysts. "It is bound to change the state in subtle and not so subtle ways.

"The whole gambling issue is probably a prime example of how it has changed. That's not to say that native residents haven't grown along with the changes."

John McGlennon, a College of William and Mary political science professor, likes to note that, "While Virginia elected a black governor, Virginians didn't necessarily do so."

He points to a September poll by the Washington Post in which Wilder led his Republican opponent by 56 to 36 percent among likely voters who had lived in Virginia 10 years or less.

Among voters who had lived here longer, Wilder was even with Republican J. Marshall Coleman.

However, in politics the Urban Crescent is less than uniform. Though the Richmond metropolitan regions falls into a similar category for income, jobs and education, its voting pattern is different than the rest of the Crescent.

"It is clear that Northern Virginia and Tidewater are the dynamic force within the state," said University of Richmond political science professor Thomas Morris. "You can talk about it including Richmond, but Wilder had a 92,000-vote lead coming out of Northern Virginia and Tidewater." Coleman carried the Richmond area.